What?

I spent all day yesterday here at the apartment cleaning and unpacking. Nate was in class and I wanted to have everything (or as much as I could do) set up by the time he got home. I must say, it's pretty darn cute. I had spaghetti ready when he finally did get home. His comment pinpointed exactly how I felt, like a little housewife. But ya know, I didn't mind it. Since most of the stuff here is Nate's, getting it all set up made me feel more like it was my home, too. And I made sure to leave space for my stuff once we get it here.

Today I ventured out to find a job. Now this was the first time I drove out of the driveway so I was not expecting to find my way easily. Getting to town was easy peasy. Go down a windy, dirt road and turn left at the funky colored daycare. Then another windy, mountain road and right at the house with the weird sun porch. More obnoxious road. Then right at the Pelham Fire Department/Police Department/Library. Then, finally, you're starting to get to civilization. Around here, even the small towns are divided into zones so I left whatever is considered Amherst East and drove into Amherst Center, which is freaking adorable. That's where Amherst College is and all these precious shops and restaurants. I applied to two positions at Amherst College so I went to the HR Office to see about them. They're already interviewing for one, so guess I didn't get that one. For the other, they're still considering internal candidates and if they look externally, it'll be a couple of weeks. I'll be good and broke in a couple of weeks. So I went to the next place I knew of, where we had seen a sign the other day that they were hiring. The Stop and Shop.

Now the Stop and Shop is actually a pretty cute little grocery store. It has all the normal groceries and even several aisles of toys, books, movies, small kitchen appliances, and holiday items. I think it would be ok to work there. I have to apply online. Guess my cute find-a-job dress won't do much good for that one. Maybe I can put it in the Skills section: "Wears cute dress well"

Then I went and picked up a few things we needed like a little trash can and a candle to cover up the obvious fact that we have three pets. I asked a couple of other places if they were hiring. No luck. So I decided to head home, if I could find it. First I needed gas, so naturally I drove around the city in a huge circle only to return to the first gas station I passed up at the beginning of my search. Surprisingly, it was full service. I didn't know those still existed! Are you supposed to tip those guys? If so, oh well. He was jabbering on about Virginia because, like everyone I've opened my mouth around in the last few days, he asked me where I was from. At least half of the time people just say, "What?"

Maybe I should just start every sentence with, "Hello. My name is Alison. I have an accent. Now, can you please point me in the direction of cleaning supplies?"

Anyway, I apparently went the wrong way because there was no multipurpose Pelham building and no weird greenhouse looking porch. Nate texted me the directions from where I was (or had been before my escapade to find gas) so I climbed the mountain from there. I lost service somewhere near the moon I think and started to feel like I was going to cry. Endless windy roads now wet from the rain. Up and down and up and down. But finally, there it was! Funky colored daycare! So I knew I was on the right dirt road even though it changes names halfway, randomly, and so all the driveway numbers change but I found ours by the little wooden sign that hangs and says "Juniper Hill Farm." It's cute. Lots of things around here are cute. Especially our little basement apartment. And my boyfriend.